In a Family Way
by Nyx Ro
Summary: Kidfic! Daniel, Sam, and Teal'c have been turned to into kids, and Jack is their guardian. Please read and review! WARNING: Past tense child abuse will discussed in a later chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes: Based on a plot bunny spawned while reading iamdragonrider's 'Growing Pains' and explored with her gracious permission. All thanks to my **_**extremely**_** patient betas, Cleo the Muse and iamdragonrider, who have held the hand of this first-time author through countless revisions while struggling to keep me from making a fool of myself. If they haven't succeeded, it's my own fault!**

**Standard Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Stargate characters mentioned herein, they belong to... actually I'm not sure who holds the intellectual property rights at this point. I just know it's not me.** sigh

**WARNINGS: Contains mention of past tense rape of a minor, not explicitly described. Please don't read if it will harm you in any way. There will be another warning on the specific chapter involved, though brief references may occur after that. Spoilers from the movie up to the end of Season 5. Note: By nature of it being a kidfic it is also an AU and begins to diverge from canon immediately. Also by the nature of it being a kidfic there are no slash or ship relationships possible, either now or in the future.**

Chapter 1

"You know, this looks a lot like the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina," commented Major Samantha Carter, looking around at the sloping, rolling terrain as SG1 stepped away from the Stargate. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, with fluffy white clouds against a cerulean sky. Birdsong started up again soon after the wormhole disengaged. Wildflowers of many colors grew in the apparently-natural bald around the Stargate.

"Hey, you're right, it does." agreed Dr. Daniel Jackson surveying the mixed pine and deciduous woodland around the bald. In the distance they could see multiple mountain ridges that became progressively bluer further out. Some of the trees were still in flower, which seemed to indicate that it was late spring or early summer in this section of the planet. A light, pleasant breeze stirred the leaves and smaller branches of the trees, and kept the summery warmth from being oppressive.

Colonel Jack O'Neill raised both eyebrows as he looked over at his 2IC (second-in-command in civilian terms), then his civilian consultant (annoyingly independent in military terms). He had gone to General Hammond begging for a nice, easy, fun mission for his team, something to help them get their groove back after a year that included kidnaping by self-centered billionaires, false Jaffa prophets, and psychopathic robots that looked and acted like young girls.

Hammond, excellent and sympathetic leader that he was, had come through for him. A Stargate address that Jack had entered into the computer under the influence of the Ancient's Headsucker Thing was assigned to SG1's mission schedule. It wasn't on the Abydos cartouche, and it was located far away from the System Lords' usual stomping grounds, so there was reason to hope the Goa'uld didn't know about it. UAV surveys showed signs of advanced technology and an unrecognized language in an abandoned structure a reasonable distance from the Stargate.

Teal'c was calmly dignified as usual, but O'Neill managed to get the vibe from him that he was relieved not to have to think about the problems of the Jaffa Rebellion for a while. The Kitano thing had hit him hard. Then there was his earlier brainwashing by Apophis, followed by the Marshmallow-an (or whatever it was called) where Junior was removed by Bra'tac until the brainwashing was broken. Getting caught in the Stargate's "buffer" due to the whole Jaffa revenge thing had to have been disconcerting also.

Daniel also seemed delighted to have a purely academic mission to focus on; he appeared as tired of and frustrated with the constant conflict over military versus civilian priorities as Jack was. Unfortunately, the archeologist had no more idea than the colonel what to do to resolve the situation. The Reese incident had put a heavy strain on a friendship that emotionally sustained both men. A mission without any Unas slaves, religious fanatics, or undercover assassin missions complicated by ex-girlfriends was very welcome.

Carter had been having a rough spell, too. In addition to the aforementioned abduction, she'd taken blows to both her personal and professional self image. First there was the appearing and disappearing boyfriend, then the poisoning of the K'Tau sun. Hey, now that he thought of it, THREE men that she'd had personal feelings for had died in a 12 month period. No, wait; there was Lantash, did a Tok'Ra snake count? Yeah, it would to Carter, so that made it four. Damn, no wonder she seemed stressed and subdued lately!

It really said something for how bad the year had been for the team that the high point was an asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth! But on that mission they had all been focused on a single goal, without any messy moral conundrums to contend with. They'd solved the problems that came up as a team, relying on each other's abilities and courage, joking constantly but without any bitterness, and wound up saving the world.

Jack wanted to recapture that sense of camaraderie and teamwork with his kids, to revitalize their sagging morale and restore their battered self-esteem. If the sacrifice required to do so was his being bored silly for a while, he'd pay it gladly.

Which wasn't to say he couldn't give them something of a hard time, though! They expected it of him, after all; it was his shtick. There was nothing saying he couldn't wring a little enjoyment _while_ he was being so all-fired self-sacrificing, was there?

With that in mind, he stated, "Well, since we seem to be in the mountains of North Carolina... let's head to Oz, shall we?" And he stepped out toward the abandoned building, as if he didn't see his teammates' looks of confusion and bafflement. Yep, acting nobly was going to be _fun!_

Of course, his fun didn't last very long. Teal'c, with his apparently endless memory for trivia, remembered there had once been a Land of Oz theme park in North Carolina, and regaled them for a while with amusing tidbits of some of the strangest tourist attractions in the United States. The bed-and-breakfast-in-a-giant-beagle won SG1's unanimous endorsement as the weirdest.

Conversation for the rest of the trip in consisted of reminisces of hiking on the Appalachian Trail, something that three out of four members had done at least in part, though O'Neill's part had been a lot further north than Daniel and Carter's. Still, it was fun to hear his younger teammates wax enthusiastic about something that wasn't work-related. While the scenery on this part of the planet may or may not have been like the Blue Ridge mountains; Jack couldn't say of his own knowledge--it _was_ undeniably beautiful.

All too soon from Jack's perspective they arrived at the circular alien structure, and the Science Twins began chomping at the bit to get into it and start discovering all the cool goodies they were certain were in there. Colonel O'Neill had to take charge and insist on a full threat assessment before playtime could start.

Carter at least had her military officer's training to distract her from her own impatience. She got out her gadgetry, and after having circled the entire structure with its rather cool wind-around porch and nifty conversation nooks with built-in benches, was able to report no radiation or dangerous energy fields, though it did seem to contain a strong power supply.

As a reward, she and Teal'c got to go inside and make sure that the same held true inside. Poor Daniel had to stay outside, but he managed to occupy himself by videotaping every square foot of the structure, especially any promising squiggles, all the while speculating constantly about why the aliens did this or that. Jack, because he'd promised himself that he wouldn't unless absolutely necessary, resisted the urge to cut him off. Whether it was because these were unknown aliens who Daniel couldn't refer back to any known Earth culture or that O'Neill wasn't constantly cutting in with sarcastic comments, Jack didn't find Daniel's excited monologue as boring as usual.

At any rate, by the time that Carter and Teal'c returned with the all-clear, Daniel's enthusiasm had even a world-weary colonel feeling interest. He had no intention of letting on, however; there was his reputation to consider.

Jack insisted his kids eat lunch before starting to explore the inside of the building, knowing once they got started they'd lose all interest in anything as mundane as food. He was swiftly proven right in this. Carter and Daniel went into full Wonder Twin mode as soon as both got inside, pointing things out to each other and trading speculations and finishing each other's sentences in that partially-telepathic way they had.

And that was before they reached the highlight of the tour: A large circular room that seemed to take up about half the area of the whole building. It looked to Jack a little like a cross between a planetarium and college lecture hall, with decor by Star Trek. There was some sort of hexagonal structure at the zenith of the dome that ruined it as a planetarium though; so maybe it was more of a amphitheater or auditorium? Hey, "planetorium": That would work.

Jack clapped his hands briskly, interrupting Sam and Daniel's excited dialogue. "Okay, kids, so how long do you think this is going to take? There's a Simpsons Marathon on tonight, and I don't want to miss it."

"Jack!" exclaimed Daniel in exasperation, "Weren't you listening? This is a culture unrelated to ANY earth culture, or any alien culture that we've encountered before!"

"And it has advanced technology, sir. There's no telling what scientific information we could acquire." Carter's meticulously professional voice was full of enthusiasm.

Jack sighed. He hated it when the Science Twins tag-teamed him, but it was good to see them show some of their old enthusiasm again. Still, he couldn't resist teasing them a little. "Are we gonna get any big, honkin' space guns out of this? Because if I'm gonna miss a Simpsons Marathon, we should at _least_ get some big, honkin' guns out of it."

Before Carter could answer Teal'c inquired, "Do you not already possess a full inventory of this serially broadcast entity?"

Jack stared at Teal'c in disbelief, tempted to ask him how long he'd spent paging through a thesaurus to come up with that one. "T, that's not the point. The point is..." He turned back to Daniel and Carter. "How long do you guys think this is going to take?"

"We'll work as quickly as possible, sir." said Carter with an understanding smile. Daniel opened his mouth to say something, but Carter caught his elbow and turned him away, muttering something sotto voce that he nodded agreement to after a quick glance back at Jack. Jack pretended not to notice; half the art of command was knowing what to overlook.

The afternoon passed peacefully and productively. Carter was able to somehow hook a laptop up to the alien system, a weird console that managed to look blocky and sinuous at the same time. Searching through the system, Daniel found that it held a database of languages, including an obscure dialect of Goa'uld. The two scientists working together were soon able to get the text to display in the somewhat familiar Goa'uld, rather than the completely unknown alien language.

As a result, they were able to decide that this facility was called The Place of Renewal, and that it was an advanced hospital. Rejuvenation... babble, babble, babble... Restoration... chatter, chatter, chatter... Return to Wholeness... jabber, jabber, jabber. To O'Neill the technobabble was the peaceful backdrop to a successfully proceeding mission, soothing to listen to as long as it wasn't directed to him. He simply patrolled the perimeter while tuning out all but the tone of voice, keeping a weather ear out for changes indicating excitement or fear. He and Teal'c did exchange occasional indulgently amused glances, though.

For a while, Teal'c patrolled the perimeter with him... okay, walked through the spiral hallways that circled inward to what he'd dubbed the "planetorium" while periodically looking out the windows in the outermost circle to make sure no threat to his kids emerged from the treeline. But then Carter did something to the computer interface that caused Goa'uld symbols to display luminescently on the overhead hexagon of the planetorium when Daniel keyed on glyphs on the console. So Teal'c was detailed to stand in the center of the domed room, and call out the symbols to Daniel in order to facilitate the process of changing this Goa'uld variant from partially understood to completely understood. Well, completely understood to Daniel, at any rate.

While his team demonstrated their skills at working and playing well with others, Jack began tracking an ominous buildup of dark clouds to the planetary south. It looked to him just like a summer thunderstorm in the making, and the freshening breeze supported that. When he heard a low, sullen rumble of thunder on his next circuit, he was sure of it.

He immediately double-timed it back to the planetorium. He interrupted the conversation without any qualms to say, "Hey, campers, we got an electrical storm headed our way. Maybe you'd better put away your playthings until it passes."

The Science Twins looked at each other, then back to him. Carter said, "Well sir, my laptop has autosave and a top-of-the-line surge protector."

Daniel stated, "Jack, based on what I've been able to translate so far, this building has been standing for millennia. I think it's safe to say it's weathered thunderstorms before. The value of the information we could get in here is..." Daniel waved his arms trying to find the right word in any of his twenty-plus languages, "...well, literally incalculable. If I'm understanding this correctly, this could give us the ability to cure injuries and heal diseases that are considered hopeless by our current medical science."

"Yeah, but for all we know they powered it down every time a thunder boomer came through," said Jack wryly. "Do we know for certain yet that your top-of-the-line surge protector can protect against this kind of surge?" he asked Carter as he nodded in the direction of the strange console. "Besides, if what you're getting is all that important, isn't it a good idea to avoid putting it at unnecessary risk?"

Ah, that argument worked on them. Much better than pointing out that their getting fried would really ruin their, and everybody else's day. He made a mental note to try this again in the future with Daniel. Carter he could always give an order to.

Daniel was staring at his alien console uncertainly, his hand hovering indecisively in mid-air. "Uh, Sam, would you mind giving me some technical assistance with this?"

"Me?" she asked in amazement, having unhooked her powered-down laptop before slipping it into its insulated case for extra protection. "Daniel, I wasn't really paying that much attention to what you and Teal'c were translating. Languages really aren't my ... thing." she finished sheepishly, as if she had been remiss in her duty by NOT having been memorizing everything Daniel and Teal'c had discovered while doing her own work.

"Oh, no, that's not it, Sam!" said Daniel. "I just have learned that what computer people think of as a straightforward, logical use of language is very different that what other people think of as... clear. I just want you to listen to my translation as I work and tell me if I seem to be making an... English major's error," he finished with an all-too-rare warm smile of real amusement.

Carter laughed. Another all-too-rare phenomenon, now that Jack thought of it. He had to start doing Team Nights again. And Team Days as well. Hadn't Daniel said just recently that he didn't have as much fun as he'd like?

Carter joined Daniel at the console. Daniel told her, "Now, this is the glyph for 'preserve', and that seems to be working as 'save', so I've selected that. And I also want to power it down, so 'restore to the previous minimum state' should do it, shouldn't it?"

Carter shrugged. "Well, your guesses have been good so far. Let's try it. This system seems to have pretty good fail-safes. Their computer techs must have had English majors to deal with, too." she finished with a mischievous grin.

Daniel made a good-natured face at her, then pressed various places on the console. He called to Teal'c, "Is anything displaying now, Teal'c?"

Teal'c said, "Indeed, DanielJackson. The symbol for 'Understand and will obey' has appeared. Now it has been joined by the symbol for 'Preparing to enact your command'. I am not familiar with the following symbol, but it appears to resemble the symbol for..."

Since his team seemed to have things well in hand, Jack stepped back out to check on the storm. To his dismay, he could hear the wind screaming even before he reached the outer hallway. Apparently, the storm had picked up far more rapidly than he'd expected.

Jack started running toward the southern window. The branches of the trees were being whipped around in gusty winds, and leaves were flying around like confetti. Green, early summer leaves were being ripped off the trees, which implied these were far heavier winds than usual for this area. The clouds were a dark slate-gray behind them, and as Jack watched, a blue-white bolt of lightning stabbed out of them, with a loud crack of thunder following immediately afterward.

"Crap!" said Jack softly but with intense feeling. The damn storm was right on top of them! Why hadn't he ordered his team to power off everything as soon as he'd noticed the building storm?

He ran back to the planetorium, intending to order that Carter and Daniel turn off everything now, and then get as far away as possible from anything that might carry an electrical current_ now._

He never got the chance. He was still several feet away from the entrance when there was a CRACK like the planet splitting and a blinding white light. His ears... Hell, his head was ringing and he ran right into the wall and slid down into a dazed heap on the floor.

After a minute or two, he realized that the hallway lights were blazing several times more brightly than originally, and as he continued trying to blink his dazzled eyes into functioning again, that there was a pinkish glow coming from behind his right shoulder.

He turned and saw to his horror that it was coming from the planetorium. The doorway was filled with a glowing energy field in which white and pink streaks writhed around each other, through which he could only faintly make out the console and Daniel's backpack, carelessly abandoned near the doorway earlier. God! Was it just contained in the doorway or did _some weird freaking alien energy field fill the entire room his team was in?_

Only years of strict military discipline kept him from rushing toward the doorway. He fumbled in his tac vest for something to toss at the door to test it– an energy bar should do– when the weird optical effect blinked off, and the hallway lighting subsided back to its original pre- lightning strike level. Well, he was assuming it was a lightning strike until he got different intel.

"Kids? You all right in there? Daniel? Carter? Teal'c? _Anyone_?" No answer.

Again, military discipline (plus experience) kept him from rushing into the room. The ominously silent room. That was the first rule of first aid: Don't create new victims. He pulled out a power bar, and unwrapped it in case the wrapper concealed subtle effects on the organic material, or provided some protection human flesh wouldn't have. A last minute thought resulted in him breaking off a piece first and just tossing that in.

It sailed through without any pause, and also without causing any sparks, ripples, or other suspicious optical reactions, then hit the floor uneventfully and skidded a few inches without any damage other than a few crumbs breaking off. An agonized sixty seconds of observation revealed no further deterioration, strange effects, or surprised questions about why he was tossing food around.

And that was all the military discipline he had left, because short of waiting for a full hazmat team he wouldn't get any better assurance of safety. He ran through the doorway, calling out again for his teammates.

For a second, he only saw a set of empty BDUs lying on the floor, underneath the zenith of the dome. Then he saw something black at one end. _Oh my GOD! Is he that badly burned!?_

He ran over, calling Teal'c's name. But he found... an unconscious young boy, no older than twelve at the most, with a full head of tightly curled jet-black hair and a skin tone somewhere between milk chocolate and mocha brown. A boy who looked a lot like Rya'c, but with a broader, square jawed face...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

For a moment, Jack just stared at the youthful face beneath him in disbelief, then shook himself back into dealing with practicalities. He checked the boy's pulse, and was relieved to find it slow but steady. A gentle once-over revealed no obvious injuries, nor did the boy--oh hell, he might as well stop avoiding proper names--nor did Teal'c rouse at the handling, or at the sound of his name.

After laying the reduced Teal'c in the recovery position, he walked quickly over to the console, both hoping and dreading to find the rest of his team in the same condition. It did beat "fried to a crisp by weird alien energy" after all. Though "perfectly normal and uninjured, just briefly rendered unconscious," was his preference.

But unfortunately he wasn't to get what he wanted. He saw a head of white-blond hair at the top end of a crumpled set of now-overlarge BDUs before he got around the console, Carter's painter's field cap laying on the floor next to it. Like Teal'c she was limply unconscious, with no evident injuries and good vitals. She appeared to be about eight years old.

Beyond her, where he'd been initially hidden by the console, was an even smaller boy, maybe six years old. If Jack hadn't seen Carter first, he would have suspected this was her because of the mass of thick golden-blond hair. Boy, Daniel hadn't been kidding when he said he'd been a lot blonder as a kid. He, too, was unconscious, but seemed otherwise stable and unhurt.

Jack rocked back on his heels and considered the situation. He had three teammates, who though apparently not in immediate physical danger, definitely needed medical attention. In addition to their transformed state, their continued unconsciousness was a serious concern in itself. Another lesson from his field medic training: Unconsciousness is always considered a medical emergency until competent medical personnel determine otherwise.

The problem was, the nearest competent medical personnel were yea-many light years away on the other side of the Stargate, which was a klick-and-a-half away. His radio would reach IF there was an open wormhole to Earth, but their next scheduled check-in was... four hours and 40 minutes away. Too long. But the alternative was leaving his companions unattended while he trekked out to the gate and back, and risking their condition deteriorating or their waking up disoriented and coming to some harm. And then there was that freakin' thunderstorm...

Which meant that he couldn't leave right now anyway; if he got killed by another lightning bolt or crushed by a falling tree, there'd be neither medical help nor anyone to take care of his kids. He grimaced wryly at how very accurate that commonly used phrase now was.

It occurred to him that he needed to get his team out of this room, just in case there was any continuing youthening effect going on. He shuddered at the thought of leaving and returning with medical help to find three dead fetuses... Great, just what he needed, more images for his vault of nightmares.

Well, Daniel was the obvious first choice to move, as he was the one with the fewest years left to lose. Odd; according to his file he was three years older than Carter. Of course, Teal'c was far older than either of them, and he'd been... kidified... too. He pulled a space blanket out of his tac vest and started to wrap it around Daniel, floating in his oversized clothes, when he noticed Daniel's Beretta, still in its now-loosely dangling holster. With a grimace he removed the gun and tucked it away in his own gear, taking a few seconds to secure Carter's zat and both their utility knives as well.

That left one P90 and a staff weapon, both of which were too big for Jack to secure on his person. Jack glanced around, then placed the two items in a recess on the wall that was hopefully too high for any of his downsized teammates to reach.

Then he carefully enfolded Daniel in the copious space blanket and lifted the small boy like a swaddled infant. One that weighed forty pounds or more. Jack grimaced as his knee twanged angrily as he stood. Well, at least _he_ wasn't getting any younger. That might be only because he'd missed being sensitized, so he didn't delay.

He carried Daniel quickly along the hallway until he reached what he thought was a reasonable compromise between the still-raging thunderstorm and any residual weird alien energy from the planetorium, and gently laid him on his side, in the recovery position. Damn, Daniel always looked like such a little boy when he slept, and that was even BEFORE this had happened.

He returned to get Carter, snagging the space blanket from Daniel's discarded tac vest. Thankfully she didn't appear to have shrunk in the interim. She didn't swim in her clothes quite so badly as Daniel, since she was larger as an child and had been smaller as an adult. He noted as he lifted he that she didn't really seem much heavier than Daniel, despite her additional height. Well, Carter was lean and long-boned as an adult, too.

He carried her out and laid her beside Daniel, also on her side. To his joy, she stirred slightly as he positioned her, and her eyebrows crooked in a brief frown before smoothing again. "Carter? Can you hear me? Carter!" But there was no further response from her, nor any response at all from Daniel.

He went back to the planetorium to pick up his third teammate. But as he knelt beside Teal'c, the boy's eyes flew open, and he stared at Jack in stark terror.

"Who... who are you? What is this place?" Teal'c asked in alarm. "Why have I been brought here?" Damn, it was strange to hear Teal'c's inflections and speech pattern in a boyish treble.

The boy sat up rapidly, but was impeded from further rapid movement by his enveloping BDUs, the neckline of his previously tight black tee now drooping off one shoulder, the jacket slipping down so completely that Teal'c automatically shook it off to free his hands. Looking down, he asked with a note of surprise added to the fear, "Why have you dressed me in this strange, ill-fitting garb?"

Then he snapped his gaze back to Jack, eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion, "Are you an agent of Cronus, seeking to kill me in addition to my father? Well, I tell you this, my father did NOT fail his lord, his efforts were sabotaged so that none could have accomplished his orders! And so I will say, no matter how you threaten me, for I will consider it not shame, but honor to be slain in my father's name!" Teal'c's chin was tilted up in a familiar angle, and his voice was full of defiant pride, dark eyes flashing with passion and fury.

"Whoa, whoa, easy Big Guy!" Jack said in a placating voice, keeping his body as still and non-threatening as he could. He had no doubt that Teal'c could be dangerous, even at his current size. "Don't you remember me? I'm your friend, Colonel Jack O'Neill. We met at Chulak, remember?" He was really hoping that Teal'c's adult memories were still there, and could be stirred to life with prompting, though everything he'd said so far indicated he had no memories past his current age.

"I have never met you before in my life! Do not seek to deceive me!" retorted Teal'c in sharp fury. He suddenly produced the zat gun Jack had forgotten he had and armed it in a smooth competent movement. "And if you do not return me to Master Bra'tac and my fellow warriors-in-training, I will kill you!"

_Damn, why didn't I disarm HIM before moving Daniel and Carter?_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Jack wet his lips, thinking as hard as he ever had in his life. Teal'c was trembling, and his lips quivered, but there was absolute determination in his eyes. Had he ever killed anyone before at this stage in his life? With an American kid at this age, barring psychosis, Jack was fairly sure he could him talk down safely, but Teal'c was a terrified, traumatized child from an alien culture with a strong warrior mindset. Damn, he could really use the adult Daniel's cultural expertise now.

Lacking that, he went for absolute sincerity. Hell, it'd worked before with Teal'c, and in a far weaker situation. "Teal'c, I know Bra'tac too. I know he took you under his wing after you and your mother fled Cronus after the execution of your father." Teal'c swallowed hard, dropping his eyes briefly, grief infusing his face.

"Your memory has been messed up by exposure to this freaky energy field. _Cronus is dead._ You killed him yourself, both in vengeance for your father and to protect your teammates." Well, technically it was Teal'c's robot double, whom Harlan had apparently gotten right the second time around, but it didn't seem necessary to introduce that complexity now.

Now Teal'c lifted his eyes back to Jack's face in surprise. "I? I am but a boy, a trainee in the arts of war. How could I kill Cronus?" But the look on his face said he wanted to believe this, very much. The hand holding the zat had dropped slightly and his grip slackened a little. The smart thing to do might be to attempt to disarm the kid now. But this was Teal'c... and a failed attempt would destroy the trust Jack was building.

"Because you grew up, and became a man, and under Bra'tac's training you rose to the position of First Prime under Apophis. You joined my team, and fight at our side as a brother-in-arms. Now, some weird alien tech in this room physically transformed you back into a child, and apparently took away your adult memories, too. But you gotta believe me, we are friends." He infused all the sincerity he could into his voice, keeping his eyes fixed on Teal'c's because he knew he was most persuasive with his face and body language, and this was a tough sell.

"I... what you speak is nonsense! It is not possible!" But there was confusion and uncertainty in his voice, rather than that vibrating-on-the-edge-of-panic note, and his arm was completely lowered, the zat apparently completely forgotten, though Jack noted with approval that it wasn't pointed at either of them. Bra'tac was apparently very good at teaching weapons safety.

"Teal'c, look at yourself. You're wearing the same type of clothes as me, only they're way too large for you. That's because they're sized for a grown man. A very tall, muscular man at that. And look at the patch on the arm. It's the same as mine, see?" Because Teal'c was calmer, he dared to move his arm and tug on his sleeve to bring the patch into greater visibility, though he was careful to keep his movements slow and unthreatening.

Teal'c examined it, then pulled the jacket in his lap around with his free hand so that the shoulder patch was more easily visible. He then scrutinized it carefully, looking back at the one on Jack's jacket several times to compare both. Jack remained still, giving Teal'c the time he needed to work things out for himself.

"They are identical," the boy admitted finally, "but... you could have removed my usual garments and dressed me in these, to persuade me of your story." Some of the suspicion came back into his voice and his grip on the zat tightened again, but he didn't raise it. Partly convinced at this point, by Jack's estimation.

Fortunately, he was ready for the question. "Why would I do that? If I wanted to hurt you, why not do it while you were unconscious? I wouldn't need to set up this elaborate scene. And if I was trying to trick you in some way, _why would I have left you a weapon?_

"Quite frankly, I'm a little glad Bra'tac's not here now. He'd say I should have assumed when I saw you'd been turned into a child that you might not have your adult memories, and removed the zat immediately. In fact when he does hear... boy, he's going to have some uncomplimentary things to say to me! I just hope he leaves my nose alone!" exclaimed Jack, rubbing his nose at a painful memory.

"Zat?...Do you mean the zat'nik'itel?" asked Teal'c. At Jack's grimace and nod, Teal'c smiled slightly, hesitantly at Jack, now apparently provisionally convinced. "Indeed, Master Bra'tac can speak most forcefully when he feels that one has been... unwise." He rubbed his own nose as well. "Sometimes he gives his words... more emphasis," he said with fellow feeling.

Jack smiled back, feeling great relief that the crisis had been successfully averted. "Oh, yeah! Now, we need to get out of here, in case there's something in this room that's capable of reducing you in size still further." At this point Jack doubted that was the case, but there was no point it taking chances. Plus he wanted to get back to Carter and Daniel, in case they were also waking up right now. Yes, he had thought to disarm them, but if they were without their adult memories, there were still a lot of dangers on an alien planet beyond weird shrink rays and powerful lightning bolts.

Teal'c's eyes widened with alarm and he accepted Jack's hand to rise up with, albeit with his left hand. Still not willing to give up the zat, Jack noted. Well, Jack would have been suspicious if a new ally had insisted he disarm himself after first meeting, and to this incarnation of Teal'c that's what Jack was: A new ally he'd just met. Therefore Jack left it alone and concentrated on the other problem just revealed, that Teal'c's pants and underwear slid down without a hitch to puddle at his feet. Fortunately the T-shirt was long enough to make a reasonable tunic, but the boy still seemed dismayed.

Jack proffered the space blanket to the current Teal'c, which the boy accepted, face brightening. With a few deft twists, folds, and tucks he transformed the space blanket into a kind of toga on top of the overlarge tee that seemed to satisfy his modesty. He sent the zat back to its dormant position, and tucked it into a convenient fold of his toga. Then he accepted Jack's hand to step out of his now bucket-like boots, and kick off his now sack-like socks.

Jack asked, "Here, do you think you can carry this?" He handed Teal'c Carter's field pack, then slung his own over one shoulder. Teal'c accepted the backpack with some bemusement. Then Jack hustled the boy out of the planetorium, eager to check on Daniel and Carter.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Why do we hurry?" asked Teal'c as they walked briskly down the hallway. "I have not seen a structure like this before," he added looking about in wonder at the curving hallways.

"You remember how I said that you were on my team? Well, the rest of our team was also... turned into children as you were, though as of--" Jack flicked the cover off his watch to check the time "--15 minutes ago, they hadn't regained consciousness yet."

A sudden thought occurred to him. "Teal'c?"

The boy looked up from gazing in wonder at Jack's watch and straightened, responding to the snap of authority automatically. "Colonel Jack O'Neill?"

Jack was impressed he'd remembered his name, but then he knew Teal'c had a mind like a steel trap. "Jack will be enough. Do not let either Daniel or Carter have your zat. If they've lost their adult memories too, they won't recognize it as a weapon. They may think it's a toy and try to play with it. That would be bad."

Teal'c looked surprised, "How can they not have seen any zat'nik'itel before? They are common Jaffa weapons."

"Er, that's where it gets very complicated," replied Jack vaguely, thinking as fast as he could. He knew Bra'tec hadn't initiated Teal'c into his Goa'uld-Are-Not-Gods thinking until adulthood, but Teal'c _had_ been happy to hear of Cronus's death at his own hands... but murdering a boy's father in front of his eyes would tend to have that effect. Still, was he ready to hear that all the Goa'uld were evil parasites, rather than gods?

At that moment they reached the little alcove where Jack had stashed Daniel and Carter, which was an effective distraction. He noticed that the wind was no longer audible, so hopefully the storm was dying down.

They hadn't arrived any too soon, because Carter was already stirring, rolling her head from side to side, shifting her limbs and making her little not-quite-ready-to-wake-up grimaces, familiar from hundreds of overnight missions. Jack was heartened to see them; since they implied the absence of severe brain damage.

He knelt by her side, "Carter?" he asked softly. She grimaced harder and scrubbed her face with her hand, but didn't open her eyes.

Teal'c also knelt beside the two sleepers, examining them closely. "They are siblings?" he asked.

Jack choked back a laugh. "No, but they act like it sometimes." He could understand Teal'c's confusion. In their common blonde fairness, their features softened by extreme youth, they could pass for brother and sister.

Apparently they were disturbing Carter's beauty sleep. With a scowl of irritation she rolled back over to face them and slitted her blue eyes open.

Carter had big eyes as an adult. Now they were huge against her smaller face when she opened them wide with shock as she sat bolt upright and screamed piercingly in terror and outrage. She tried to scramble away from Teal'c and O'Neill, bumping Daniel before fetching up against the hallway wall.

Well, at least Daniel reacted to this; he pulled up the space blanket over his face and rolled up into the tightest ball he could--a familiar Daniel-response to being disturbed before he was good and ready to wake up. At his current size, he was able to pull up into an amazingly small space.

His movement attracted Carter's attention just as she was pulling in her breath to scream again, and caused her to abort the impulse as she stared at him in amazement and Carter's trademark curiosity. There was something reassuring about a peacefully slumbering, obviously unalarmed kid younger than her that was a remarkably effective antidote to blind panic.

Or at least it was so for Carter because she didn't scream again, to Jack's relief. Man, was she able to hit a high pitch at this size! "Who are you!?" she demanded instead, defiance mixed with fear. "How did I get here!?" She glared at the two of them. "Have you kidnapped me? You won't get away with it! My daddy is Major Jacob Carter, and he's in the United States Air Force, and he'll catch you! So you'd better take me back NOW!" Her voice wavered a little on this last bit, but she recovered herself quickly and squared her jaw to stare at both of them with undaunted spirit.

_Aww, Carter. _Well, it wasn't like he had any high hopes of her not being affected by the same loss of memory that affected Teal'c, though it would have been good to have his 2IC's backup in this situation.

He repeated the same drill he had with Teal'c, explaining the situation, pointing to her adult-sized uniform which matched his, with Teal'c putting in his part to endorse Jack's story. Of course, with her he could add more Earth-related detail, including the fact that he knew her father, and that her father had reached the rank of general, and was now working with some of Earth's alien allies. Teal'c absorbed this additional information with interest, obviously adding it to his budding knowledge about his current situation.

As Carter listened, her pugnacious attitude faded as she applied her already-ferociously logical mind to evaluate the available evidence for herself, and reluctantly accepted his story. She wasn't at all happy about it, though, and why should she be? While intellectually she might be able to grasp what was going on, emotionally she was a little girl who wanted her mama and daddy. Her lower lip quivered with suppressed emotion.

Evidently all this exposition was too much for even Daniel to sleep through, because he uncurled himself and sat up midway through the explanation, his tousled hair standing nearly straight up on his head, a look of sleepy confusion on his face. He was staring at them and his surroundings in bemusement, but at least he wasn't screaming or threatening Jack with a deadly weapon and/or Jacob Carter's ire. Jack wasn't sure if this was because he'd overheard enough of their explanation to Carter to soothe his anxiety, or if he wasn't alert enough to have really grasped his change in circumstances yet. With a just-awakened Daniel, it could be hard to tell.

Still, it seemed wise to go over it again, just in case. This time he had both Teal'c's and Carter's interjections. Explaining it to someone else seemed to help both of them grasp it better themselves, and gave them a feeling of power over the situation, so Jack let them take the lead in the briefing.

Daniel listened intently as the other two explained, and Teal'c and Carter both gently helped him rearrange his cocooning clothing to show him the SG1 unit patch on the arm of the jacket that matched Carter and Jack's, Teal'c's jacket having been abandoned with the rest of his oversized gear in the planetorium. Or rather Teal'c and "Sammi Carter" explained the situation to him--the "I" on the end was to show she was "not a boy" she informed the others emphatically. Jack's role was reduced to giving a little friendly wave when Teal'c punctiliously presented him as "Colonel Jack O'Neill". Sammi added the clarifying detail that he was "in the Air Force, like my Daddy."

After all this was through, Daniel sat silently for a few minutes, obviously processing all this. Well, it was a lot to take in. Apparently Teal'c and Sammi agreed, because they didn't say anything while he pondered.

Then a look of wonder spread over his face. "You mean," he gasped, "I'm in the _future_? I've been transported into the future and like kids in books, I'm having an _adventure_?"

Teal'c seemed nonplussed by this reaction; science fiction evidently wasn't a big part of a Jaffa childhood, though the adult Teal'c relished it. Sammi looked taken aback at first, then thoughtful. Slowly, a big grin spread over her face. Apparently, the child-Sammi found "having an adventure in time travel" far more exciting (and less scary) than "being ripped away from your home and family and dumped into the ill-fitting remnants of an adult life you can't remember."

So Daniel and Sammi began jabbering about various fictional kids who'd had adventures in time travel, space travel, or visits to various magical lands. The Narnia series... the Green Knowe books... Mushroom Planet? The one time they'd been to something that could be called a mushroom planet neither Carter nor Daniel had shown any particular enthusiasm for it... _The Wizard of Oz_; Ha! He'd known Daniel was faking! No wait, they seemed to be talking about the book. There was more than one book? He hadn't known that... _The Adventures of Jonny Quest_: Now that was a cool show. Sammi and Daniel must have seen it in syndication... Cricket Magazine? That was odd, neither Daniel nor Carter had ever mentioned a childhood interest in entomology before...

Poor Teal'c, frowning in incomprehension, seemed to feel pretty left out of the conversation. It seemed to be veering now more toward science fiction and fantasy they liked than the topic they'd started out with, though that wasn't so unusual for one of the Wonder Twins conversations. Apparently concluding (correctly) that there wasn't going to be a pause in the conversation any time soon, he turned to Jack and asked, "They are both of this... Earth? I have never heard of such a world."

"Well, actually, you may have heard of it as the world of the Tau'ri." Jack explained. He tried to remember exactly what else Teal'c had said about it, but that had been a long time ago and there had been so much going on then. Getting the Stargate program up and running, getting Daniel situated and declared legally alive, protecting Teal'c from being imprisoned or dissected, poor Kawalsky's tragedy...

Teal'c's eyes widened. "The Tau'ri? The First World? The world where all humans and Jaffa first came from? But that is... Is that not a myth of the superstitious and unenlightened?" he asked in startlement.

"Nope, no myth," said Jack, trying to come up with the best way to answer this. Was this part of the Goa'uld-as-gods divinity show, and could contradicting this lead to Teal'c denouncing them as heretics who must be slain in the name of the gods? He still had that damn zat, and there were now two smaller kids in the line of fire.

But his gut feeling remained that absolute honesty was the best policy with Teal'c. That and trust in Teal'c's basic goodness and fair-mindedness; Jack didn't believe that he would ever harm the two smaller children. The compassion he'd showed while reassuring the frightened Sammi, the gentleness with which he had handled Daniel while he'd maneuvered Daniel's jacket around to show him the SG1 team patch--both argued against it.

Still, it was best to say as little as he could get away with. "Just... something that once was lost, but now is found. Bra'tac was pleased enough about it, though he did say some uncomplimentary things about my fighting abilities. Still, he took them back after I knocked him down in one bout."

"You defeated Master Bra'tac?" gasped Teal'c.

Jeeze, it might be more threatening to Teal'c's world view to dethrone his hero than overturn his religion! Still, complete honesty, he reminded himself. On which note, he explained, "Nah, I just took him in one bout. He got me on the next one. AND he's gained several years since you remember him. But he did grudgingly admit that I was worthy of working with his favorite student, which was what I was really after then." He gave Teal'c a self-deprecating smile.

Teal'c looked surprised, "Bra'tac actually stated I was his favorite student?"

"Well, um..." Actually Jack wasn't sure exactly when he'd said that, or if for that matter, he'd ever said it outright. But over the years, Jack had come to know on a level deeper than mere knowledge, that Bra'tac considered Teal'c the son of his heart. Though he wasn't sure he should say that to a boy who'd lost his father a few months ago.

But he had to say something quick, Teal'c's face was starting to fall. "By the time I met the two of you, Teal'c, you were a grown-up and a skilled warrior. You mostly address each other as 'Old Friend'."

Teal'c's eyes grew huge and the corners of his lips turned up and slowly grew into the widest smile he'd seen yet on the boy's face. Apparently to Teal'c the news that his revered teacher now considered him an "Old Friend" had fully as much coolness factor as Sammi and Daniel attributed to being on an adventure in the future.

Which reminded him... he clapped his hands and called, "Kids!", interrupting Sammi and Daniel's animated discussion of "Alexander Key". Jack wasn't sure if that was the name of a character, an author, or some kind of key the heroes had to find in order to save the universe from the Blue Meanies. "We need to start thinking about how to get you back to the SGC... uh, our base. Now, first we need to figure out something for you to wear..."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

This turned out to be easier said than done. Sammi wasn't't that much of a problem. Carter had been a slender woman and Jack was able to punch some extra holes in her belt and then Sammi could use the belt to hold up her pants. All he had to do then was hack off the legs of the pants to end at Sammi's ankles and she was done, though her t-shirt nearly came down to her knees. Well, once she'd returned from her discreet withdrawal to shed underwear that no longer fit, she was done. The result looked baggier than Daniel's worst "orphan clothes" style, but she was decently covered and ambulatory.

Daniel was a much bigger, or rather much smaller, problem. He'd lost the most mass in relation to his previous adult size, and unlike Carter and Teal'c's preference for trim fitting clothes, Daniel had preferred a relaxed fit. Swimming in his clothes? Hell, he was scuba-diving in them.

He ruthlessly commandeered Carter's spare t-shirt to use as a tunic for Daniel. Fortunately, Sammi was bouncing about testing the fit of her "new" clothes and didn't't realize Jack was rifling in "her" things. He asked Daniel in how many cultures did boys wear tunics when the small boy looked dubious, and managed to divest Daniel of his cocoon and get him into his new garb while Daniel was distracted by telling Jack about Ancient Greece and Medieval Europe. The next time Daniel paused to take a breath, he called to Sammi that she could now turn around and come back.

She skipped back over as Teal'c was fashioning a space blanket toga for Daniel and came to a stop, wiggling her bare toes curiously into the folds of the spare space blanket. Jack cursed mentally. He'd completely forgotten about shoes! He couldn't't walk three kids barefoot across a kilometer-and-a-half of rough terrain; Janet Fraiser would skin him alive. On an alien planet, no less, with unknown diseases, parasites and insect life just waiting to burrow into tender toes... forget skinning, he'd be lucky if she left his gonads attached.

He was pondering his options while Sammi and Daniel were bounding around, jumping over discarded adult clothing and the space blanket, giggling. Teal'c looked intrigued at this activity, as if he wondering if it befit the dignity of a student in the arts of war to join in.

Maybe he could have Teal'c wear Carter's boots and carry Daniel while he carried Sammi... but that was a long way for a half-grown boy to walk in ill-fitting footwear with a wriggling, restless burden of around half your current body weight on your back. But did he dare leave three kids to their own devices in a building crammed with demonstratively hazardous alien tech?

Maybe that argument would convince Fraiser to spare his _cojones_.

Fortunately for his testosterone levels, his radio chose that moment to squawk to life. "SG1, this is General Hammond. Please come in." It was Hammond's familiar if slightly tinny voice.

Jack quickly fumbled for his radio. "General Hammond, this is Colonel O'Neill. I'm very glad you called, sir. I could use some assistance, please. Over." The radio conversation was evidently interesting enough to cause his teammates to stop stomping Daniel and Carter's insulated jackets down with their bare feet and come running over.

General Hammond's voice was taken aback. "Assistance, Colonel? What kind of assistance do you need? Over."

Before Jack could think how to word his explanation, Sammi exclaimed, "That's my Uncle George!" She leaned over Jack's mike to call, "Hello, Uncle George! Do you work with me in the future? You got promoted to be a general, like my Daddy? Jack didn't't tell me that!" She threw Jack a reproachful look.

There was a pause, before General Hammond's voice came back with a stunned, "Colonel O'Neill? What's your situation? Over."

Jack drew a deep breath, and said, "Well, sir, we've got... a few little problems here, as you can tell. Three, to be precise. We're going to need a medical team... some of our tech experts in non-human systems and some translators from the linguistics department... full Hazmat gear, and whatever gizmos or gadgets they use to detect and analyze weird energy fields, though I really think everything's off now... um, some of the clothes we keep on hand for refugee children. And shoes, definitely shoes. Over."

Hammond seemed to be in shock, because a new voice came over the mike, urgent and anxious. "O'Neill, what of Teal'c? You speak of a medical team..."

"Master Bra'tac!" cried Teal'c in delight and relief. He must have been under more stress than he'd shown over his decision to trust Jack. The fact that he now had confirmation that Master Bra'tac was indeed allied with the Tau'ri showed in the relaxation of taut muscles in his shoulders, his beaming smile, and sparkling eyes. "I am indeed very well, Master Bra'tac!" He paused to consider, then stated firmly, "Complete. Is that correct, Jack O'Neill?"

Hammond came on again then, "Your requested assistance is being assembled, Colonel O'Neill. I don't hear Doctor Jackson. What is his situation? Over."

Glancing over at the wide-eyed Daniel, Jack replied, "He's lost several pounds and looks years younger for it, just like the others, and is otherwise unharmed as far as I can tell. You wanna say 'hi' to General Hammond, Danny? He's a friend of yours, too."

Sammi broke in, "Yes, say 'hi' to Uncle George, Daniel, he's really nice. He can pull quarters out of your ears."

Teal'c added loyally, "And I assure you that Master Bra'tac is every bit as... 'nice' as General Hammond. And... should the situation warrant it, he is quite capable of removing any undesired objects from your ears."

The hum of the radio took on that strange, blank tone that indicated that the full mute had been engaged. Yep, they were probably falling all over themselves laughing in the control room. Sammi looked startled, and opened her mouth but Jack caught her eyes and shook his head slightly, and she subsided, though she ducked her head to conceal a grin.

Daniel hesitated, looking at both of them in turn with a puzzled frown as if he was wondering about their sanity, then leaned over Jack's mike and called shyly, "Hi, General Hammond. Hi, Master Bra'tac."

Apparently the general had managed to regain control over the control room and his own sense of humor because the mute came off and General Hammond replied, "Hello, Daniel. I'm glad to hear your voice."

"And I offer you my greetings as well, Daniel Jackson of the Tau'ri," added Bra'tac. "And Teal'c, I am gratified to know of your confidence in my skills. I shall strive to always live up to your expectations of me."

Bra'tac was a truly evil man, thought Jack as he heard strange muffled sounds in the background. But General Hammond was apparently in command of the situation, because they were quickly cut off. "Is Major Carter still there, Colonel? Over." the general asked calmly.

Sammi looked perplexed for a moment, as if wondering why her Uncle George was asking about her father, until she remembered that she was Major Carter "in the future" and beamed proudly. "Yes, I'm right here, Uncle George!" Then recalling her knowledge of military protocol, she quickly said, "I mean, yes sir, Uncle George... General Hammond!"

There was a smile in Hammond's voice as he replied, "Why don't we keep it to 'Uncle George' and 'Sammi' for now, sweetheart. I just wanted to apologize for not returning your very polite greeting earlier, and to let you know that we will be sending notice to your father at his... current posting, asking him to ... report in as soon as he can. But it may not be possible for him to come immediately, Sammi. It depends on how long it takes him to get the message, and how quickly he can get away from his... current duties."

Poor Sammi's lips turned downward again, quivering, but she bravely collected herself and said, "I understand, Uncle George." And the hell of it was, reflected Jack, that she probably did, military brat that she was. He thought back to the many times he had disappointed Charlie by not being able to be there because of his military duties.

A voice spoke indistinctly in the background, and then General Hammond came back and said, "Your requested assistance team is now ready to deploy, Colonel O'Neill. Is there anything you need to tell us in addition to the UAV data to expedite things? Over."

"Well, sir, there's been a very intense thunderstorm since then, so they should be alert to and prepared for possible residual bad weather and storm damage. Oh, and could Master Bra'tac come with the assistance team? He's the most qualified person to brief Teal'c on the current state of affairs regarding our Jaffa allies. Over." He hoped they picked up the subtext of _Help! I have a brainwashed kid who needs deprogramming!_

"I don't believe it would be possible for me to stop him if I wanted to, Colonel O'Neill," said Hammond dryly. "Your relief should be there in 50 minutes. Over and out." The radio went dead.

Jack huffed out a soft sigh. He'd gotten his kids safely out of the planetorium, gotten them oriented, reassured and clothed. Now the SGC was aware of the situation, and he had help on the way to make sure they okay and to figure out how to undo their... downsizing.

Why did he have the feeling that the HARD part was about to begin?

**Please read and review! How can I get any better if you don't tell me what sucks? **


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Jack kept his team occupied while waiting by directing them to get all their things picked up and packed away. Well at least those things that were outside the planetorium; he couldn't see a single good reason to expose his kids to that room again. The techies could pack everything in that room up themselves and would probably prefer toso that they didn't miss even a single, solitary potential clue. It hadn't been lost on him that their department's commissary table conversations were often heated dissections of the latest episode of _CSI: Crime Scene Investigations._

So they gathered all the scattered items of adult clothing that no longer fit and packed them into the two backpacks they had available. Fortunately Carter's was very capacious since her laptop and a lot of her other doohickeys were still inside the planetorium. Daniel, to Jack's surprise, was most creative in finding ways to fit things into the available space. Daniel solemnly explained that it was expensive to haul stuff out to dig sites, so it was important that you packed carefully.

A brief hiccup was caused by Sammi's reluctance to fetch her former underwear "because if boys see your underwear they laugh at you," as his former 2IC whispered to him as Teal'c and Daniel were deciding how to distribute the load. So Jack had given her a bandana to wrap the apparel in, which Sammi accepted with relief and ran off to procure the Highly Sensitive Garments. Frankly, Jack felt Sammi was far more likely to get amazed questions from Daniel and Teal'c than laughter, but he'd be just as happy not dealing with said questions, so maybe she had a point.

Once all items had been stowed away, including the potentially embarrassing ones, they still had some time to kill. So Jack led his now much-smaller team on a recce to evaluate the weather conditions. To his relief, the storm had completely passed and the sun was shining brightly. The kids were highly impressed by the evidence of the storm's intensity:Wetleaves plastered all over the south side of the building, broken off branches everywhere, downed trees, even a storm-caused river of muddy water rushing past on the east side. The last was a source of great fascination to Daniel and Sammi, and both of them wanted to go wading. Something that Jack firmly nixed; since shoes were en route there was no way Fraiser would spare his genitalia if he let them expose themselves to possible pathogens or parasites now.

The bright sunlight revealed additional details of his teammates' changed appearances. At first he thought they'd been restored to the hairstyle they'd had at this age during their original childhood, and the rumpled look that Daniel and Sammi shared was simply due to their hair being unbrushed. However, now he could see that in all of them their hair was distinctly uneven, being longer at some places than others and completely unshaped. The degree of this effect varied from one to the other, but all three of them were going to need haircuts.

The very curly texture of Teal'c's hair made this feature less noticeable with him, and since his hair was shortest the resulting variance was less. Neither the gold tattoo of a First Prime nor the regular black tattoo of a Jaffa was present. Whether that was because he was too young to have one at his current age or if the planetorium had removed it due to mysterious parameters of its own Jack couldn't say; he couldn't remember at which age a Jaffa usually received his tattoo. As a result he could pass as any strikingly handsome, lightish-skinned African-American boy, despite an exotic cast to his features. Adult Daniel had felt that some of Teal'c's ancestors were of Mayan stock.

In the child Daniel, the uneven hair was particularly obvious, with one particularly overlong patch in front that caused him to have to keep shaking or brushing hair out of his eyes. And in addition to now being golden blonde, his hair was far more curly than as an adult, almost forming ringlets at the ends of some of the longer locks, though at least some of that might be due to the high humidity. The yellower hair made his blue eyes look an even deeper blue, almost with a violet tinge. With his strong but delicate features, full lips, and large soulful eyes he looked like a mop-topped Botticelli angel.

Sammi had in some ways gotten off more lightly than Daniel in the hair department, paradoxically because her hair was longer overall. This disguised the unevenness at first glance, and it meant that it stayed out of her eyes better. The biggest surprise in her case was that Sammi had freckles! Not a lot or very dark ones; what his ex-wife Sara would have called a cinnamon-sugar dusting over her nose and cheeks. Also her eyelashes, while still long and thick, were as pale as her towheaded hair. The two changes made for quite a change in her appearance, giving a winsome, tomboy charm to a little girl whose huge eyes and rounded features would otherwise make her look like a porcelain collector doll. How much of this was due to the complete absence of Carter's usual make-up was an open question, though how--and why--the alien tech had removed her make-up was one for the techies to answer.

Speaking of which–-here came his relief team now! He checked his watch; only 45 minutes after they'd set out. Seeing the severity of the storm damage that was very good time. Also seeing the number of people involved. Damn, Hammond must have stripped both the hard and soft science departments. Well, since most of them reported to either Daniel or Carter, there were undoubtedly lots of volunteers. They had brought three F.R.E.D. units? Well, they should have all the gizmos and gadgets required then.

"Master Bra'tac!" cried Teal'c in delight as Bra'tac strode forward quickly, cloak swirling about him. Then as Bra'tac came closer, Teal'c registered the many changes in his appearance, and looked stunned.Yes, he knew he was "in the future," and that he'd had time to grow to adulthood and avenge his father, but given the far longer lifespan the Jaffa had, it wouldn't have been unreasonable for Bra'tac to have looked the same as when Teal'c last saw him.It brought home how very many years had passed, and Teal'c swallowed hard.

Bra'tac said with amusement, "No, I am not nearly as pretty as I was when last you appeared as you do now, hmm?" He laid a hand on Teal'c's shoulder and said, "But it is still good to see you whole and well, even though you have indeed lost much weight and look many years younger for it, as O'Neill puts it," he said with a wickedly humorous glance in Jack's direction. Jack gave him a grimace in return. Teal'c took a deep breath, then nodded and managed a smile for his "first teacher."

"Uncle George!" Sammi suddenly cried out, and Jack turned to see General Hammond approaching. The little girl started to run off barefoot toward the older man in the green BDUs and the painter's field cap.

Jack caught her elbow and said "Aht! I told you not until you have shoes!"

"Quite right, Colonel O'Neill," came a familiar voice firmly. Ahh, Janet Fraiser had come herself. Jack was glad of it, since it meant his kids would be taken care of properly. A brief look of pain crossed her face as the three children stared at her without recognition, but she mastered herself quickly and went into professional mode. "Colonel, I need somewhere to set up to do preliminary assessments. Do you have any suggestions?"

After that things began to get organized. Janet left followed by one of the F.R.E.D.s and two of the airmen to set up an impromptu clinic in a small room near the "facilities" (which fortunately were still in good working order, given the number of people who'd just arrived). Techies and linguists followed Jack's directions to the planetorium; presumably they found it without difficulty because no one came back plaintively asking for more precise directions.

Bra'tac drew Teal'c aside to "converse together, as old friends should do." Presumably, this would include introducing him to the concept that the Goa'uld were false gods. The two of them sat down on a built-in masonry bench apart from the rest of the action.

Hammond knelt down before Sammi and began connecting with her. At first she seemed shy of him, perhaps because of his older appearance. But he soon had her chattering away easily to him, and when he removed his cap theatrically to reveal his now-bald head, she pressed her hands to her face and burst into giggles.

Jack found his third charge had moved in close to his left leg, and was watching the research team move in and out of the building calling arcane instructions to each other, often pausing to stare in amazement at the three kids before moving briskly on. Daniel's entire posture was stiff and his expression was tensely alert; apparently the comfort of "having an adventure in the future" was having a hard time standing up to this invasion of large numbers of strange people.

To hell with Jack's knee, Fraiser could always give him a cortisone shot later. He knelt beside the boy and put his arm around him, drawing him in close. Damn, he could feel the kid's heart thumping like a jackhammer in his scrawny chest; the little guy must be terrified. Unlike Sammi and Teal'c there was no one here that he'd known before.

"Hey," said Jack softly, "are you okay?"

After a pause, the little boy solemnly nodded. Well, at least he wasn't claiming to be fine.


	7. Chapter 7

**Note: I am shamelessly inventing a lot of nuts-and-bolts details about doing archeology in the academic world during the early seventies, using information from various sources and weaving it into what I feel is a plausible whole. Aside from actually interviewing an archeologist who was working in Egypt in this time period, I can't think of any practical means of researching this. And since I don't know any such specialists, I'm left with Stargate SOP: Make something up and hope it passes muster. If anyone with actual knowledge about these procedural details spots an error, please let me know!**

Chapter 7

Janet came out of the building, opening her mouth as if to call something to him, then stopped, seeing Jack with his arm around Daniel. Well, she was one of a small number of experts in Daniel Jackson's body language.

She walked over to the two of them and squatted before Daniel. Dr. Fraiser spoke in a gentle voice. "Hello, Daniel. My name is Janet. I know you don't remember me, but I'm a friend of yours, and also your doctor."

Daniel looked at her, brows knit as he contemplated her. "You're going to know me in the future?"

Janet looked at Jack in startlement, not being privy to Daniel's way of conceptualizing what had happened to him. Jack explained in a few words, keeping his arm around Daniel, feeling the boy start to relax slightly.

"I see." said Janet, contemplating the explanation. "Well, Daniel, I'd like to examine you, to make sure that you're all right after what happened to you. Would you let me do that?"

Daniel hesitated, then looked at Jack, "Will you come with me?"

Jack hesitated, and checked his other teammates. Teal'c and Bra'tac seemed to be deep in an intense conversation, and as Teal'c knew Bra'tac far better than Jack, he shouldn't be too bothered by Jack's disappearance. Hammond had apparently done his quarter trick, because Sammi was excitedly examining a coin. She seemed pretty comfortable with "Uncle George".

He said, " Sure," and caught General Hammond's eye, pointing in turn to Janet, Daniel and himself. At Hammond's nod he carefully levered himself up, putting as little strain as possible on his knee. Janet threw him a sharp glance; Jack made a slight grimace, but gave a dismissive wave. He held out his hand, and the small boy took it. They both followed Janet into the building.

Janet's impromptu clinic looked surprisingly complete for three people, but Janet was known for not cutting corners. Or Jack had assumed it was for three people until Janet said, "Colonel, why don't I take a look at you first?" glancing briefly at Daniel, who staring around in mixed fascination and apprehension at the unfamiliar equipment.

Jack sighed. It seemed unfair that he wouldn't even be able to amuse himself as usual by giving Janet a hard time, since he was clearly being called on to "set a good example". But on the plus side, there might be something she could do to relieve his knee, though he was afraid the dread term _arthroscopic surgery _would be mentioned again.

In deference to his knee, she did allow him to sit in a chair instead of the examining table while she did her routine. Daniel watched with fascination. "That looks a lot like doctors do in my time," he commented as she worked with the stethoscope. "Don't you have tricorders like on Star Trek, or stuff like that in the future?"

Janet laughed. "No, we don't have those yet, sad to say. We have made a lot of advances though, but most of it's not portable enough to bring through the gate. But this is something new." She showed him an ear thermometer, then demonstrated its use on Jack, to Daniel's delight.

Jack suffered through the rest of the exam, and as he feared, she did tell him another surgery was in his future. But she also gave him an anti-inflammatory pill, applied liniment to his abused knee and give him a portable ice pack for it. This also inspired Daniel's glee, since she let him be the one to twist it to activate it. Feeling it turn icy cold in his hands afterward made his eyes go huge as saucers.

After all this, Daniel had no qualms about letting Janet twist off his space blanket toga and lift him to the table to examine him. He obediently pulled the neck of Carter's tee out to let her slip the stethoscope down it.

"So, how old are you, Daniel?" Janet asked as she listened intently to different places on Daniel's chest.

"Six and a half." answered Daniel absently, staring down his shirt to track her motions with interest. "Well, almost six and a half. I'll really turn six and a half on June 16th, but I won't have my half-birthday until July 8th."

Janet's hands paused in their well-practiced routine, and Jack felt his eyebrows lift at this startling answer. For a moment his mind gibbered in wild fear that they'd somehow gotten the wrong Daniel, and the real Daniel was somewhere out there, needing rescue. But he forced himself to listen to the conversation intently and as expressionlessly as he could. Military discipline again: First gather intel, then plan your strategy.

Janet was excellent, as always. She resumed her interrupted motions and asked, "Your half-birthday? What do you mean by that?"

Daniel looked up at her in surprise. "You know me in the future, and you don't know about my half-birthday?"

"Well, sweetie, you've never mentioned it before." said Janet smoothly. "Maybe you didn't think it was important."

Daniel considered this. "I guess the grown-up me doesn't care about presents," he said dubiously, apparently considering this far harder to believe than mere time travel.

"Well, Dannyboy, when you start gettin' old, you start wantin' to avoid remembering that day." said Jack in a fake creaky voice, rubbing the small of his back with a grimace, as if it ached.

The distraction worked; Daniel giggled, then answered Janet's question, at least after she posed it to him again. It seemed that his "whole birthday" was December 16th, but that was too close to Christmas. Plus his parents had to finish up their semester paperwork, and get ready for that winter's archeological dig. The Egyptian climate meant it was best to do archeology in the winter. Then they had to write up their finds, negotiate with the Egyptian government about removing artifacts from the country, report to the grant provider, arrange for museums to display their finds for however long the Egyptian government let them keep them, etc, etc.

And by the time all that was done, it was time to move to whichever university in whatever country his parents were going to be teaching at that year until the next dig season. So with all that going on, it wasn't "convenient" to celebrate Daniel's birthday until July 8th. "And they said that day is important for senna... sent-ih-mental reasons too." said Daniel solemnly. "That's the day they both told each other 'I love you' for the first time." Jack listened to this, his heart aching for a little boy who had to wait until his parents found it "convenient" to celebrate his birthday.

But to be fair to his parents, they seemed to go all out with his half-birthday; stopping their own work for a few days to concentrate on Daniel, taking him on trips to points of interest in the city/state/country of their current occupancy. Daniel certainly seemed happy enough with this arrangement. It was apparently a rare point of stability in his strange, nomadic existence.

And that led to the second surprise when Daniel described his last "half-birthday" in New York City for the 1976 Bicentennial Celebration. While Daniel burbled on about fireworks, parades, and a trip up to the top of the Statue of Liberty, Jack did a little mental arithmetic and calculated that would make Daniel's date of birth December 16, 1970, not July 8, 1965 as his records showed.

So... did they have their own Daniel, who had been lying about his true age for years, or did they have a child-Daniel from an alternate universe who happened to be born five and a half years later than their Daniel? If it was the second, how did they find THEIR Daniel and rescue him, and restore his alternate to his correct time and place? What if the same were true of Sammi and Teal'c?

_Crap! Just when you think a situation can't get any more complicated!_

**Author's Note: I know that Michael Shanks' birthday is actually December 15****th****, but I had a desk calendar once that contained the scintillating information that December 16****th**** was Chocolate-Covered Anything Day... and well, I just couldn't resist!**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Janet was able to complete her exam on the current Daniel-at-hand without further incident. Even the blood draw went smoothly, with Jack to hold his other hand and the promise of a dinosaur band-aid. She then gave him some clothes that fit him, including shoes and socks. Mostly in assorted shades of blue, Jack noted, including a t-shirt that was a pretty close match to Daniel's eyes. They were a bit too big, because Janet had to guess at sizes with little information at the time, but Daniel seemed happy to be completely covered again. He was even happier with the sparkly sticker and lollipop she gave him, though she warned him not to eat it until they went back through the gate because "some people throw up then."

Daniel ran back outside to show Sammi and Teal'c his booty, which was a clever marketing ploy for Janet, now that he thought of it. Once they were alone, he turned to her, and said, "Well?"

She sighed, and rubbed the back of her neck wearily. "Well, I can test his DNA and see if it's a match for what we have on file. But the alternate Kawalsky that came through the quantum mirror had DNA that was a perfect match for our Kawalsky, so I'm not sure what that would tell us. But I just realized this; whenever I've asked Daniel for his date of birth, to check his state of consciousness, he always gives just the month and day. He only gives the year if I ask for it specifically. Given that he's always looked younger than his official age, maybe his correct date of birth IS December 16th, 1970."

"He was already thoroughly screened before being brought into this top secret program," pointed out Jack.

Janet shrugged, "Well, I've never done any background checks, so I don't know if something like this could be missed, but the background reports that I get to see on infirmary personnel are only statements that they lack past history of criminal behavior, belonging to seditious organizations, mental instability and the like. I don't know what the top echelons of command get to see. I can only give you my medical observations of Daniel, physical and behavioral."

At that point Sammi burst in excitedly, hoping for a sticker and a lollipop, and the conversation was tabled for the moment.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Since Sammi seemed to quickly become at ease with Janet, she didn't object to Jack's excusing himself. It looked like the primary problem Janet was going to run into with Sammi was her desire to play with the medical equipment. The ear thermometer was her current focus when Jack left.

Once outside, Jack briefed Hammond on what he was calling the Birthday Bombshell. Like Jack, Hammond was amazed that this could have slid through the background checking procedure.

"But I wasn't even assigned to this command at the time Dr. Jackson was first hired," Hammond said thoughtfully. "And at the time I finally met him, with everything else that was going on at the time, I had no reason to request a second background check on someone who'd already been cleared. I was kept busy enough reviewing background checks on all the new people we were hiring to get the SGC up and running! And by the time things had calmed down, he'd already proved his worth and probity."

"I don't know what to think either, sir," said Jack. "I remember reviewing his personnel file, concluding he was a geek, and dismissing him otherwise. I'm sure his background check was in there, because I would have noticed if it wasn't, though I can't remember if it was the long form or the short form. But... I was just barely a human being then." Jack snorted bitterly. "I noted he was an orphan with no wife, kids or other close relatives and thought, 'Good, no one to kick up a fuss if he doesn't come back'. Daniel was the one who made me human again."

Hammond laid a consoling hand on Jack's shoulder. "I know, son." was all he said. It was all that could be said, really. But it was comforting nonetheless.

Hammond removed his hand and returned to business. "So, do you think that's our Doctor Jackson down there?" he asked, nodding at the small boy who was currently talking to Teal'c and Bra'tac. "Or is it someone from another timeline?"

Jack hesitated. "My gut feeling is that this is our Daniel. It just... feels like him. I never knew him at this age, but ..." he finished with a shrug.

Hammond smiled. "Well, I did know Major Carter... I mean Sammi Carter at this age and my gut feeling is that it's her. She certainly seems to remember everything she should remember. Why don't we play it like it lays for now, Colonel? I'll get an investigation started into this... discrepancy once we get back to the SGC."

"Yes, sir. If I may, I'd like to check on Teal'c now. He's had a lot of shocks today."

"Certainly, Colonel O'Neill. In fact, consider it your primary duty, until I inform you otherwise, to tend to your teammates."

"Thank you, sir." said Jack with a smile and a brief salute. It was always good when your orders coincided with what you were going to do in any case. It saved everyone lots of aggravation.

General Hammond gave a grin, as if he knew what Jack was thinking, and went off to consult with the technical teams. Jack walked over to join a stunned-looking Teal'c, Daniel, and Bra'tac. Daniel had his hands on hips saying angrily, "Well, that's just mean! You shouldn't lie to people and trick them like that! I want to hit him!" He gave an illustrative swing of his fist in the air. Then he looked abashed, and said, "Well, I know you're supposed to solve problems by talking, not fighting. But Apophis is very mean, and I still want to hit him!" he ended fiercely.

Well, this did kind of explain how the mild-mannered academic adapted so well to military life. Bra'tac smiled at Daniel and said, "Well, I see both the man of peace and the warrior were within you from an early age, Daniel Jackson." Turning to Teal'c he added, "When you first told me this one was a mighty warrior, I did not at that time believe you. And yet events proved that your judgement was correct as usual, old friend."

Teal'c managed a slight smile, but he still looked deeply shaken.

"Do you know what those mean Goa'uld did, Jack? They..."

"Aht!" said Jack, holding up his hand. "Daniel, has it occurred to you that at this point in time I, Bra'tac, and Teal'c all know more about what those 'mean Goa'uld did' than you do, so there's no need for you to brief us on that, okay?" He softened this by ruffling the boy's hair, then hurriedly smoothed the wayward strands back out of the poor kid's face. He'd forgotten Daniel's overgrown hair made ruffling problematic just now.

However the incident caused Daniel to giggle, and brought a more authentic-looking smile to Teal'c's face for a moment. Jack sat down on the other side of Teal'c and asked the older boy quietly, "You okay?"

Teal'c looked up at Jack's face, stricken. "I... nothing is as I believed it to be. Apophis denounced Cronus as unworthy of allegiance, and promised me the chance to train as a warrior to someday overthrow Cronus to gain vengeance for my father's wrongful slaying. I saw how those who live in Apophis's domain are more prosperous and happy than those in the domain of Cronus, and how Apophis is generous in his gifts to those who serve him well. I thought that he was truly the greatest among all the gods, and that to fight to bring all peoples into his rule would be a good thing for all, and a worthy endeavor to devote myself to. Now..." Teal'c could say no more; he broke down in tears.

_Aww, Teal'c. _Jack had indeed done some "damned distasteful things" in the service of his country, but this bone-chillingly cynical exploitation of a child's agony at the death of his father was still pretty damned awful. Apophis had emotionally manipulated Teal'c into vowing to overthrow Cronus and add Cronus's territory to Apophis's domain and called it "giving Teal'c an opportunity to avenge his father's death". No wonder even gentle Daniel felt violent; Sammi would probably want to blow Apophis up. Jack made a mental note to tell all three later that the adult Sam had in effect blown Apophis up--They'd probably all find it immensely gratifying.

This wasn't the right time for that now, though. Bra'tac wrapped the sobbing boy in his arms and pulled him close, sharing a look of parental anguish with Jack over Teal'c's head. Of course Bra'tac couldn't have brought a child into his little rebellion back then, for the boy's own safety as well as that of the other conspirators. But that didn't make the shattering of a child's innocent faith any easier, much less the knowledge that you had been at least implicitly part of the lie. How could you possibly apologize for that?

Daniel's mouth was puckered as if he wanted to start crying in sympathy, so with a jerk of his head Jack indicated his intent to Bra'tac, who nodded, then gave all his attention to Teal'c. Jack took Daniel's hand and led him away, to protect both Teal'c's dignity and Daniel's all-too-tender heart.

As they walked away, it occurred to Jack that he owed an apology to Daniel. He'd never asked Teal'c why he'd given his allegiance to a second System Lord after he'd seen Cronus kill his father. And then he'd cut Daniel off (once again!) when Daniel was trying to tell him something important. "Hey, I'm sorry. You did know something about the 'mean Goa'uld' that I didn't know, didn't you?"

Daniel looked up, his blue eyes somber. "It's okay. I didn't know all of it, anyway–not about thinking that Apophis would be better for the people living under him. Though really, you'd think _anyone_ would be better than Cronus, just based on history. Did you know he ate his own kids? But still..." Daniel heaved a great sigh, and looked back over to where Bra'tac was holding Teal'c. "I wish I could make Teal'c feel better. He's so nice."

Jack gave Daniel's hand a gentle, comforting squeeze. "I'm sure you'll be able to, later. The two of you are very good friends, and you do a pretty good job of making him feel better. It'll probably take a while, but we'll all help."

The small boy looked up with a shy, pleased smile. "Teal'c and I are friends in the future?"

"Oh, yeah. And you can still be friends now, too! Ya sure, Ya betcha!"

That won Jack another giggle. And by then they'd reached the building's entrance, where a timely diversion was caused by Janet and Sammi emerging. Sammi was now wearing pink warm-up pants, though she'd apparently elected to keep her knee-length black tee, now decorated with a sparkly butterfly sticker on one shoulder. She also had a tortoiseshell barrette securing her freshly-brushed hair. Janet, by contrast, looked much the same, except for a look of slightly-harassed amusement on her face.

"Sammi, why don't you tell Daniel about the medical equipment in the future while I speak to Colonel O'Neill," requested Janet, giving Jack a meaningful look.

Nothing loath, Sammi launched into a spate of breathless, but slightly vocabulary-impaired, technobabble to the fascinated Daniel. Janet led Jack a few feet away, so they could confer out of the two children's earshot while keeping them both in view.

"Sammi told me her birthday is May 12th, 1968, exactly the same as we have on file for Sam... Major Carter. She told me she went to bed yesterday on April 27th, 1975, after reading and recording the 100th book she needed to become a Blue Ribbon reader. The next thing she remembers is waking up "in the future". She did express surprise that her skinned knees from a roller-skating accident yesterday were completely healed with no trace left. She said her hair was shorter than it was "last night" because she used to be able to wear it in braids."

Jack sifted through all this to come to the salient point. "Wait–you mean she's only six? I thought she was eight!"

Janet smiled, "Well, she's only two weeks from her seventh birthday by her account, so I think we can regard her as effectively seven. The more significant part to me is that her skinned knees are gone, which would indicate a physical transformation of the 2002 Sam rather than a 'switching places' with the 1975 Sam."

"But she's a lot bigger then Daniel, and they're both the same age!"

"Actually, sir, she's about a half year older–Daniel couldn't give us a time more exact than late May in 1977. Six months is a significant length of time at this age."

O'Neill was still trying to get his mind wrapped around this second surprise. "Daniel's taller than Carter! I mean the grown-up Daniel is, so how come child-Carter is taller than child-Daniel?"

"Sir, men tend to be taller than women because they go through puberty later, and keep growing longer. Before puberty boys and girls are– on average– roughly the same size. Major Carter, with an adult height of 5'9", is over the 95th percentile for height for women. Doctor Jackson, by contrast, with an adult height of 6 feet even, is around the 75th height percentile for men. So her being taller as a child is what would be expected, even without the 6 months age difference.

"Now, Colonel, while I'd love to stand here discussing your... size concerns, I really need to check Teal'c for possibly communicable viruses or nanites, as well as general health, so we can get the kids back to the SGC before dark," Janet finished with a hint of exasperation in her otherwise-professional tone.

Jack's mood sobered instantly, and he glanced over to Teal'c and Bra'tac. Teal'c was now sitting upright again, looking up at the older Jaffa, who had one hand pressed to the boy's face. His tears appeared to have subsided, but no child should have such a look of such soul-deep pain on his face.

He turned back to Janet, who was now gazing at this same scene in concern, having apparently followed his look. "Doc," he said quietly, "go easy with him. In fact, it might be better to have Bra'tac present while you examine him. He's going through a lot of things right now, and unlike Sammi and Daniel, he's not even in a culture he recognizes."

"Yes, I can see that," murmured Fraiser pensively. She looked back to Jack and said, "Actually, sir, I had intended to do so anyway, since Bra'tac would be able to spot any physical or memory discrepancies better than I could. Will you watch over ...?" she nodded over to Sammi and Daniel.

"Sure," he told her, "you go take care of our other little... time traveler."

Her face crinkled up in a smile, though her brown eyes were still full of concern. "Will do, Colonel," she said firmly. She then turned, and walked toward Teal'c and Bra'tac.

O'Neill turned to his charges. It seemed the joys of science were more quickly exhausted at this age, because they were now comparing lollipops. Daniel had selected French Vanilla Cream, while Sammi had opted for Strawberry-Banana Swirl. Jack made a mental note to find out where Janet bought her suckers as he walked over to join his two younger kids.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"So you're living in Toronto, now?" Jack asked Sammi. He was sitting with the younger two children on a built-in stone bench, in one of the little conversation nooks surrounding the alien building. Sammi was sitting to his right, Daniel to his left. Right now he was engaging the youngsters in conversation while waiting for Janet, Teal'c, and Bra'tac to complete Teal'c's medical exam.

"Uh-huh," said Sammi, nodding emphatically. She was filling him in on the many moves she'd already experienced in her short life as a "Military Dependent" of a an officer who was rising rapidly through the ranks of the Cold War Air Force. "Daddy is working with the Canadian Air Force on something _very_ important," she told him earnestly, her big blue-grey eyes widening dramatically. "But Mark and I aren't supposed to talk about _anything_ we may overhear, or listen on the extension when Daddy's on the phone, or brag to our friends, or even mention that he's doing something important." Then a look of comic dismay filled her face and she sheepishly said, "Oops!"

"Hey, hey, it's okay!" O'Neill reassured her. "You're in the future now, remember? And if you're talking about the North American Satellite Defense Program, that was declassified years ago. It's posted on the internet now, for crying out loud!"

"What's the internet?" asked Daniel, pulling down his royal-blue pant leg after having just finished checking–yet again!–that his lollipop was still safely tucked into the top of his sock. The lightweight track pants he was wearing lacked pockets. He slid the heel of his bent leg off the bench and resumed swinging his legs as he looked up at Jack curiously.

_Oh, crap!_ Yep, that was a bucket of worms opened right there. Jack opened and closed his mouth helplessly. Now Sammi was looking up at him curiously as well. O'Neill tried to think back to his childhood to see how he would have thought of the internet back then. But nothing in Buck Rogers or Disney's gleaming Tomorrowland came close to paralleling the incredible reach, scope, and creativity of the internet, or the speed with which it had become indispensable and inescapable in American culture. It had literally gone from zero to everywhere in 15 years or so. He was a fish trying to explain the ocean to mountain lion cubs.

Sammi giggled, "You look funny. Your eyebrows keep going up and down and your mouth keeps opening and closing."

Daniel rocked back and forth, laughing with glee, "You look like my daddy did when Ahmad told him the marketplace was all sold out of coffee!"

Sammi looked at Daniel with interest, "My daddy likes coffee, too! He gets upset when my mama tells him we're out." She grinned with impish amusement.

At this opportune moment, Janet, Teal'c and Bra'tac emerged from the building. Teal'c's mouth was downturned in disgruntlement as he stared at the band-aid on his left arm. Jack wasn't sure if that was because of the primitive state of Tau'ri medical science, or the cartoon figure on the band-aid. They'd been able to find some standard BDUs that almost fit him, Jack noted. He hoped no one pointed out to the boy that they were undoubtedly sized for female personnel. Or was that the reason for his disgruntlement? The grown Teal'c would have been amused, but this Teal'c was at an age that was very self-conscious about his masculine dignity.

Bra'tac claimed the youth's attention by clapping one hand on his shoulder. "Teal'c, please watch over your younger teammates while I confer with our allies. I know this is a task that you can perform well. Keep alert, and use all your craft and strategy."

All sulkiness dropped off of Teal'c's face, replaced by conscientious eagerness. "I will do so, Master Bra'tac." Damn, if Bra'tac could bottle what he had and sell it, military programs everywhere would be lining up to buy it. Jack would score a barrel of it for his own use with some of the disciplinary cases it was his pleasure to deal with as Hammond's 2IC. Before being assigned to this position, he wouldn't have thought "laundry abuse" was even _possible._

Teal'c took up a slightly officious stance near Sammi and Daniel, who were looking up at him with surprised fascination. Jack pushed himself off the bench, giving the smaller children a reassuring smile, and Teal'c an acknowledging nod as well. Then he joined the physician and the leader of the Jaffa resistence.

As he did so, the General saw them gathering, and excused himself from his discussion with one of the members of the archeology department. They moved toward Hammond as he headed in their direction, which resulted in everyone meeting at a convenient distance from the research teams and the children.

"Master Bra'tac, Colonel O'Neill, Doctor Fraiser," General Hammond acknowledged each of them in turn. "What have you learned so far about... this situation?"

Janet, after a glance at the other two, took the lead. "Well sir, none of them–including Colonel O'Neill–shows any signs of infection with any viruses or nanites that might be communicable." Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise, not having considered that possibility. He'd thought she'd taken his blood sample as an example for Daniel.

Janet took a deep breath. "The next issue is that Teal'c's symbiote, er "Junior" seems to be missing."

"Whoa! Doesn't he need that?" exclaimed Jack in concern.

Bra'tac took that question. "While it is traditional to implant Jaffa children with their first prim'ta at 100 moon-cycles of age, or sometimes earlier if it becomes necessary due to injury or illness, a Jaffa can survive until the onset of puberty without one. Teal'c at his current age had not been implanted yet, because he missed the time of ceremony in Cronus's domain, and the next one in Apophis's domain had not occurred yet.

"But though a Jaffa child doesn't not need a prim'ta implanted until puberty to survive, once one _has_ been implanted he will grow ill and die if it is taken away afterwards. And as the adult Teal'c did have a prim'ta... I do not know what that means yet, for Teal'c now." Bra'tac's voice was outwardly calm but his expression was grim, and his grip on his staff weapon was white-knuckled.

"And of course that leads to the _big_ question of 'Where's Junior now, if not in Teal'c?" O'Neill said slowly. "Or should it be, '_Who's _Junior now?' given that we've had yea-many people in and out of that planetorium by now?" _And is it me? Kawalsky didn't know HE'D been infected by a Goa'uld at first, either. _Jack shuddered; once was enough!

The Jaffa warrior grimaced at Jack's flippant way of referring to the larval Goa'uld who served as the adult Teal'c's immune system. "Teal'c's current prim'ta--'Junior' as you say– is far too immature to take a host at this time, or even survive for long out of a Jaffa's womb or a priest's symbiote tank. We need not worry that any of your people have become a host. And as Teal'c's womb has been restored to an unawakened state, we can hope that he is now able to live without a prim'ta. Hoping and knowing are different things, however. I will not be content until I again know that Teal'c is well and healthy."

"And to confirm that, we need to get Teal'c back to the SGC. Now, before his immune system has a chance to crash, if it is going to crash." Janet's voice was very serious; she was completely focused on her role as physician. And the glance she flicked to General Hammond paired with a jerk of her head toward Jack indicated that she remembered what happened with poor Kawalsky and a supposedly immature Goa'uld from a Jaffa's pouch as well. They needed to do their standard post mission exams ASAP.

At that moment they heard a dull _thunk _followed by a brief sound of spattering water droplets and a squeal of childish outrage. The adults turned to see Daniel by the trunk of a small tree, one leg still crooked and arms outspread for balance. The trunk had a wet shoeprint on it at about Daniel's current waist-level, and its branches were swaying with transferred motion, releasing a burst of leftover raindrops on Daniel and his two compatriots.

Before any adult could remonstrate with the little boy, who was staring up into the little tree's low canopy in surprise, an avenging angel with sparkly butterfly sticker stalked over to him, grabbed a branch above his head, and vigorously shook the branch, revitalizing the tree's slowing motion and generating a fresh sprinkling of water. She glared at him and shouted self-righteously, "See!"

Daniel cringed apologetically and said, "Sorry." He looked up at Sammi through his eyelashes appealingly, grimacing with embarrassment.

Teal'c came over to them and said reprovingly, "That was foolish, Sammi Carter."

Sammi's mouth dropped open indignantly. "But, Teal'c, he sprinkled me when he kicked the tree! You _saw _him. He even sprinkled on you, too!"

"Yes, and by shaking the tree again you have increased the ... sprinkling. In fact, more so than Daniel Jackson did originally. On yourself, as well as Daniel and myself."

It was Sammi's turn to look embarrassed, as she realized the truth of this. She looked down and muttered, "Sorry."

Now Teal'c turned to Daniel and said, "And whoever this "Bruce Lee" may be, it is unwise to shake trees on unfamiliar planets. They may contain noxious insect life, that will sting or bite in their own defense if they are disturbed." Teal'c rubbed his neck, a look of pained recollection on his face.

Daniel looked up at the tree in alarm, and began backing away from the shelter of its boughs. "Um, yeah. Nick told me about tree-scorpions in Mexico and Central America. Maybe we'd better..."

The word "scorpions" was enough for Sammi; she was already out from under the tree. "Come on, boys! You need to get out from under there!" She looked around anxiously at the surrounding vegetation, as if eight-legged arachnids with giant curved stingers were waiting to shower down on them.

"Indeed. It would be judicious." Teal'c put a hand on Daniel's shoulder and hastened the already-retreating little boy out from under the shadow of the stilling tree, which now had ample payback against its harassers. Jack could almost imagine arboreal snickering in the rustling of its leaves.

General Hammond chuckled. "Well, it looks to me like it's time to get these kids back to the SGC. Let me have a last word with the science teams, and then we'll move out. Colonel, Major, if you'll get the youngster's ready? Master Bra'tac, I'll be back directly."

Bra'tac turned from gazing at Teal'c with pride and amusement. "As soon as you are ready, Hammond of Texas. I stand prepared"

Hammond moved off, and Jack turned and called his kids over to them, interrupting speculation on whether this was the right climate for scorpions, and if stinging caterpillars were worse than scorpions or vice versa.

-----------------------------------------------------

After the children had been reassured, somewhat inaccurately, that this was obviously too damp a climate for scorpions, they were ready–finally!–to move back toward Earth and the SGC. Not before time, either: The shadows were already starting to lengthen despite the long, late-spring daylight, and the kids were looking more and more longingly at their lollipops. (Teal'c had chosen the blue raspberry one.)

The returning group had said farewell to the engrossed research teams and started back to the Stargate. Most of the storm runoff had... run off by then, but there were still plenty of impressively-large broken off branches to distract the youngsters from their rumbling bellies.

Jack kept a weather eye out for Teal'c, but it seemed the older boy was still fully healthy, if getting very hungry. O'Neill wasn't alone in that; not only Bra'tac and Doctor Fraiser, but General Hammond and Major Dixon were discreetly monitoring Teal'c's condition. But if anything he seemed to be weathering the hike back better than Sammi and Daniel, who had shorter legs and less cultural inhibition against whining. Though the sight of a lightning-struck tree excited their scientific interest for a while.

But it was the sight of the Stargate that really revived the two flagging younger children. They stared at it mouths open in amazement as Major Dixon, a family man himself who knew all about "the witching hour", went immediately to the DHD and started dialing.

Since his youthened teammates seemed safely occupied for the moment, Jack stepped over to where Janet, Bra'tac, and General Hammond had just freed the medical F.R.E.D. from yet another broken off tree limb. "Doc, whatever your plans are for these kids, you need to get them fed soon, or their blood sugar is gonna crash. That's not fun in the _adult_ versions."

Janet sighed, "Well, I had wanted to..."

"C'mon, Daniel! Last one there is a rotten egg!" an excited, childish voice called out, cutting off the rest of Dr. Fraiser's sentence and turning O'Neill's blood to ice. He spun to see two curious and delighted Earth-born children, start running forward to investigate this new phenomenon at close range, toward the real-life danger of the unstable vortex of a forming wormhole...

Jack's special-ops trained reflexes threw him forward into a lunge, and he managed to grab a handful of Daniel's shirt. His other hand just missed Sammi's shoulder. Overcompensating to keep from falling on top of Daniel after the missed grab, he sat down hard in the leaf mold, bringing the small boy down with him.

None of the other adults were in a position to catch the athletic little girl either, as she sprinted full-speed toward the Stargate just after Major Dixon hit the central crystal. A look of horror covered the major's face as he saw the unfolding situation, and he surged forward desperately to intercept her path, defying time, distance and pitiless reality.

The wormhole vortex was starting to form in the Stargate as Sammi reached the bottom of the ramp, poised to continue up it straight into a plasma backwash. The intent child didn't seem to hear the barely-started cries of warning behind her, she was so completely focused on futuristic science and competitive fervor.

Then she was flying sideways off the ramp into the underbrush as the white wave of the kawoosh clipped the shoe of her tackler, before subsiding back into the blue and harmless-looking event horizon, as if it hadn't almost forced Jack to relive the worst event of his life.

Time started again, and as if freed from an evil spell, everyone ran to where Teal'c lay on top of a stunned Sammi.

"You...you pushed me! Why did you do that? I didn't do anything to you!" The little girl's lower lip was trembling again, her huge eyes full of hurt indignation.

"You were about to run into the shrel'en'avak of the chaapa'ai, Sammi Carter!" returned the shaken but resolute Teal'c as he moved off the smaller child and sat up. "It is death to do so. I realized that if you did not know of zat'nik'itel, you might not know of this danger either, and I feared you would be consumed before you could be made aware."

"But... but... I didn't... No one..." Sammi literally couldn't seem to think what to say, her eyes puzzled and embarrassed.

"He is correct, foolish girl of the Tau'ri!" Brat'tac said harshly. "If Teal'c had not acted as swiftly as he did, you would no longer be among the living!"

Jack had seen Bra'tac intimidate decorated Marines and Special Forces commandos, but what caused Sammi to break down completely was General Hammond's solemn, "I'm very disappointed in you, Samantha Carter. I thought I could trust you to act sensibly."

Curling in on herself, she pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around them, hiding her face in her hands. She burst into a storm of heartbroken tears from shame, surprise, and unexpected censure.

"Hey! It wasn't her fault! She didn't know!" Daniel Jackson wormed his way through the forest of adult legs to plop down beside Sammi and put his arm around her. "Please don't cry, Sammi. I would have gone, too, if Jack hadn't grabbed me. It's not your fault. Please don't cry."

Sammi was beyond such easy soothing, however. The multiple shocks of the day were too much for her on top of this last trauma, and her shoulders shook as her crying reached hysterical intensity. Daniel's eyes widened with dismay at this response to his well-meant efforts. The adults exchanged worried looks. Their reprimands had been from the reflexive anger of sudden relief, but no one had intended to cause this kind of desolation!

_Aww, Sammi_. She had seemed so confident and self-possessed in dealing with her strange dislocation that Jack had been focusing on Daniel and Teal'c. He walked forward and sat down by her other side and wrapped his arm around her. Daniel, looking relieved at the adult back-up, let go on his side. Pulling her close, Jack spoke in a quiet, gentle voice to the overwrought girl. "It's okay, Sammi, everything's okay. It's all right to cry. Nobody's mad at you, we were just scared. I should have warned you about what would happen when the Stargate dialed up. It was my fault, not yours. Just go ahead and cry–you're entitled."

Sammi turned toward him, and then somehow she was in his lap, cradled in his arms with her face buried in his jacket as she sobbed out all the disappointments, terrors and injustices she'd experienced since she'd woken up in the hallway of a building on another planet, 27 years in the future. But the sense of hysterical overload was gone, and these were the healing tears that "cleaned your eyes and heart out" as Sara used to tell Charlie.

Daniel was rubbing her back now, his face full of sympathy. Teal'c knelt in front of her looking concerned but uncertain of what to do. Jack could hear Hammond talking on the radio in the background, then the wormhole disengaged.

Slowly, her tears began to subside as she gradually cried herself out. Finally she was still and quiet in his arms, except for a few residual hitches, but her face remained buried in his jacket. He rubbed the back of her head with one hand and asked softly, "Hey, are you okay?"

A muffled, embarrassed voice replied, "I've gotten snot all over your jacket."

It was both so prosaic and so quintessentially Sam Carter that it surprised a brief laugh out of him. "Hey, that's okay. Like the bumper stickers say, 'Snot happens'."

She burst into a fit of watery giggles at that. "That's not what they say! They say... a bad word."

"Well, that's what they SHOULD say. Because everybody cries, sooner or later, and with tears, come snot. I don't know why it's that way, but it is. 'From every nose some snot must run'."

She giggled again, and the laughter shook the last few tears out. At last she lifted her face a little away from his jacket. Janet, who was squatting nearby, handed the little girl some wet wipes to clean her tear-...and snot-... stained face.

Sammi wiped her face clean, then tried to clean off O'Neill's jacket as best she could. Afterward she put the used wipes into a plastic bag that Janet held out for that purpose. Only then did she lift her face and look up at the faces around her in chagrin. "I'm sorry," she said in a subdued voice.

"For what?" asked Jack calmly, taking up the back-rubbing that Daniel stopped while she cleaned her face.

"It is we who should apologize, Samantha," said Bra'tac earnestly. "Any Jaffa child of your age would know the dangers of the chaapa'ai. And your adult self was better versed in them than I myself. I forgot that in your Tau'ri childhood you would have no knowledge of such things. When I saw Teal'c fling himself into harm's way to save you, my terror for both your lives was great, as was my wrath afterwards once the danger was past. I then spent my wrath on one who truly had no fault in the matter. Ai! I am an old man, and my brain has grown as wrinkled as my face!" A faint, shy smile from Sammi rewarded Bra'tac's self-deprecation.

Hammond came back over and knelt in front of Sammi, holding out his arms. "I'm sorry, dear. Would you forgive your old Uncle George and give him a hug?"

Sammi smiled a big, wonderful smile and reached up and hugged the General. Then she hugged Bra'tac, to the seasoned warrior's delight, which she followed by hugging Teal'c "for saving me." Daniel also received a hug "for sticking up for me," and Janet got one "for being nice." Major Dixon got one "so he wouldn't feel left out," she said with a giggle after the experienced father pretended to whine at the unfairness. She didn't give a verbal reason for the one she gifted Jack with, but he understood nonetheless.

Teal'c of course, came in for a lot of praise from all the adults for his swift heroic response. Master Bra'tac did call him his best student, to Teal'c's delight (and Jack's relief that his own credibility was now propped up). Daniel looked up at the older boy with hero-worshipping eyes, as did their little blonde tomboy. The trainee Jaffa warrior seemed both gratified and embarrassed by all this regard.

And while all these warm fuzzies were wonderful, the adults involved exchanged meaningful looks as Sammi was trading embraces with the other children. It was apparent that integrating three "time travelers" into 21st century America was going to be far more complicated than all had first realized. Their "adventure in the future" was rated R for Real Danger.

------------------------

Janet determined that Sammi and Teal'c had received a few scratches from their rough landing, which were immediately disinfected; they'd learned not to take risks with offworld pathogens. In addition a sizeable chunk had been taken out the sole of one of Teal'c's boots by the edge of the plasma backwash, only the multiple layers of socks protecting his flesh from damage. This discovery seemed to call for a new round of hugs to Sammi, and no one begrudged it. They had come way too close to a horrible tragedy.

But finally enough love had been shared, and as a gorgeous sunset began, the gate was dialed again without incident, with Jack holding Daniel and Sammi's hands. This time the younger two showed no disposition to surge forward, even after the plasma backwash receded. But with the grown-ups and Teal'c' urging them, they came hesitantly up the stone ramp. Major Dixon demonstrated walking through the ramp and through the Stargate, and Jack warned them that matter could only go one way to prevent anyone from trying to run back to PJC-876 after arriving at the SGC.

By now both Sammi and Daniel looked very alarmed, and O'Neill cursed himself again that he'd neglected to explain all the important information about the Stargate on the trip in. If they could have avoided the near miss with the unstable vortex, the smaller kids would be loving their first experience with the 'Gate as much as their adult selves had. Say, that was an idea...

He told them both of their first experience with the Stargate "in the future" and how Daniel had stood and played with the event horizon for a good five minutes before stepping through. This was information Jack _didn't_ have until viewing the video footage after his own return to Earth, as he told Sammi when she got indignant at the news he'd pushed her through long before she'd had _near_ that much time to play with it.

But her competitive spirit seemed to have completely eradicated her apprehension, and all three of them played with the puddle for several minutes. "All three" being Sammi, Daniel and O'Neill, of course. To Teal'c, the chaapa'ai was old hat, and he quizzically watched the childish antics of the Tau'ri with an amused Bra'tac at his side.

Jack stopped playtime after Sammi learned to slap the puddle in exact counterpoint to Daniel's rhythm, canceling out his ripples. She seemed to feel that the smaller child would be happy to have this fascinating principle of physical science demonstrated to him. Instead, she was miffed when the younger boy gave an annoyed demand for her to "Quit it!" Jack grabbed them both by the hand and tugged them through the event horizon before relations could deteriorate any further.


End file.
